Great winter trips in the West

Pages

Pages

28 miles of sand all to yourself

Within easy reach of Portland and Seattle, Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula is arguably one of the most visited oceanfront spots in the Northwest. In the summer, that is, when elbow-to-elbow crowds jostle for a glimpse of Jake the Alligator Man, and traffic idles bumper-to-bumper on the “World’s Longest Beach” (as an iconic, if not quite accurate, sign proclaims). In the off-season, though, this windswept peninsula—from the mouth of the Columbia River to the oyster-rich Willapa Bay—is all yours. As empty and awesome as the clear, cold day in 1805 when explorer William Clark declared, “Ocian in view! O! the joy …”